I have been a practitioner of magick and witchcraft since 1992. During my pre-teen years, I was raised Jewish. My family celebrated the high holidays and occasionally went to temple. My brother had his bar mitzvah at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. His rabbi was not only a man of God, but he also studied the Kabbalah, something that I would become fascinated with decades later. I had always been a child of fantasy and mysticism. Growing up in the 80s provided me with plenty of imaginative films and literature. We had The Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, The Dark Crystal, and The Princess Bride. Each of those films contained multitudes of magical thinking and inspired my brain to believe in the unseen. My shelves were filled with books on mythology, folklore, poetry, ghost stories, and fantasy. These genres provided me with a safe escape from what was going on in my household. My family was falling apart, but instead of seeking therapy, I turned to the Divine Feminine. I found company in the woods with the fae folk and believed that nature contained the power to heal. I dedicated myself to The Goddess when I turned 15. That same year, I was gifted my first pack of tarot cards. I remember opening up the deck and seeing powerful images mixed with otherworldly symbols and characters. This was the beginning of a life-long journey into the realm of symbolism, archetypes, mysticism, and the subconscious.

As a poet and a mystic, I have been inspired to discover the connection between well-known writers and their relationship to spirituality, more specifically, their connection to tarot. Upon further research, I was surprised to see that some of my favorite writers have either dipped their toes into the occult, or have completely submerged themselves in the vast ocean of mystic knowledge. It came as no surprise when I discovered Sylvia Plath used the tarot deck to help compose some of her most famous work.

The tarot pack is a divination tool used by mystics and psychics to reveal truths and offer guidance to the querent. They first appeared in 1400 Italy as a card game called Tarocchi.  It wasn’t until the late 18th century that occultists and spiritualists made the cards popular by using them as divination tools. In 1908, when occultist and member of the Order of the Golden Dawn, A.E. Waite paired up with the artist, Pamela Coleman Smith, also a member of the Order, they added more of an esoteric and spiritual feeling to the cards. The Major Arcana cards in A.E.

Waites’ deck, also called The Rider-Waite deck (Published by William Rider &Son), consists of 22 Major Arcana cards (cards 0-21), The suits (Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles) are each numbered 1-10. There are 4 sets of court cards as well (Page, Knight, Queen, King). This version of the tarot deck used influences and artwork that were more akin to Hermeticism and other ancient mystical areas of study. Around the same time, there was a growing desire for people to learn about spiritualism and psychical research. The movement caught the attention of confessional poet and novelist, Sylvia Plath.

Sylvia Plath was most likely introduced to the Tarot by her grandmother, who taught her the Austrian card–game of Tarok.  This was a card game which was played with an ordinary pack of cards. There was little to no significance placed on the imagery or symbolism of the cards. Growing up attending a Unitarian church gave Plath room to explore earth religions. Plath once stated:

I resort, not to the church, but to the earth. The impersonal world of sun, rocks, sea, and sky gives me a strange courage, an inexplicable feeling that no matter how trivial my mind, my ego, my existence, which only a brief sojourn on earth, ended by death, there is a bind unconscious force that will outlast me and perhaps the human race (Source).

According to The Occult Sylvia Plath, At 15 years old, she carved a small hermetic caduceus as an ode to Mercury.

Plath also owned a copy of Robert Graves’ The White Goddess and later would bond over this ode to the goddess with her future husband, Ted Hughes. She believed she had used the power of words to manifest him into her life when she wrote the poem, “Circus in Three Rings”. It wasn’t until Plath’s mid-twenties that she owned her own Tarot pack. The Marseille Tarot deck was gifted to her by Ted Hughes, for her twenty–fourth birthday. The deck was purchased from Watkin’s Bookshop in London, UK. It was at this same shop where Sylvia purchased a copy of The Painted Caravan: A Penetration into the Secrets of the Tarot Cards (1954), by Basil Ivan Rákóczi. According to Julia Gordon-Bramer, the author of The Occult Sylvia Plath: The Painted Caravan claimed that

Romani tarot wisdom traced back to Kabbalistic, Rosicrucian and masonic sources reaching back as far as the Greek Elysian mysteries. Rocosi traces tarot to Celtic origins, and ancient Egypt, yoga teachings of the east, Chaldea, the northern druids,  Hebrews, Gnostics, and more. Tarot is a repository for heretical wisdom held secret under Christian persecution (Gordon-Bramer).

These topics fascinated Plath and she yearned to learn the secrets of the ancient esoteric practices within the book. Plath read the pages carefully and became fascinated with specific archetypes within the Major Arcana. In a letter written to her husband, on October 16th, 1956, Plath wrote:

I began reading my Painted Caravan book; it is my favourite book;…. I meditate on the Fool and the Juggler, staring at the pictures, reading and re-reading the lucid, pleasantly written descriptions of them and their significance. I shall go through the whole book slowly this way, so that I shall come upon the difficulties of setting out the Pack with a basic sense, at least, which will flow and re-cross and blend, I think, by great concentration and much practice (Sylvia Plath Letters).

The cards mentioned in this letter are The Fool (Major Arcana card 0) and The Magician(Major Arcana card 1). Plath’s poem, “The Caravan”, is about the Magician card. The Magician is the archetype in the deck who marries matter and spirit. One of the main goals of the mage is to find a balance between dualities. If you notice one arm points up to the cosmos and the other arm points down to the earth. This gesture amplifies the phrase “As above, so below”. In a reading, The Magician card informs the querent that they already contain the power to wield the tools lying dormant in their sack; they just need to learn how to use them. By continuing on their journey, the querent will find out the meanings of these items and eventually,  with a few lessons in between, reach enlightenment.  Plath was on a journey herself. Tarot cards weren’t her only interest. She was a deep sensitive poet with a fascination for all things spiritual. She also played with the Ouija Board receiving messages and premonitions from multiple spirits (even information on specific publications); however, the tarot cards were her tool for composing two of her most well-known works, The Bell Jar, and Ariel.

According to author, Mary Kurtzman, Plath used the archetypes of the Major Arcana in The Bell Jar: The main character of the novel, Ester, is symbolized by The Fool card. In chapter one, where she meets Lenny, he is symbolized by the Magus card. In chapter 3, Doreen symbolized the High Priestess. She uses the Judgement card for chapter 20 (also the number of the Aeon or Judgement card itself). This is the chapter where Ester is feeling judged by the staff at the hospital (Kurtzman, Pg. 287).

Plath had her main character, Ester Greenwood, go on the Fool’s Journey, very similar to Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey. As the Fool, Ester is naive and inexperienced, yet full of hope. She continues through the journey and meets new people (characters of the Major Arcana) who teach her different lessons. Ester experiences the highs and lows of a new experience and opportunity. Through this, Ester discovers what it is like to face her shadow self. Her use of tarot cards in The Bell Jar is not as apparent as when she uses them in Ariel.

Before she died in 1963, Plath had been working on her second book of poetry, Ariel. For this book, Plath followed the order of the 22-card major arcana then the ten minor arcana ranks followed by the 4 court cards and the four suits. Unfortunately, after her death, her husband, Ted Hughes completely rearranged the order of these poems. According to “Plath’s Ariel and Tarot” written by Mary Kurtzman:

She [Plath] uses the Bota deck’s slightly different order for the poetry: card 8 is Strength and card 11 is Justice. The first poem, “Morning Song” I the fool card. Next is “The Couriers”, the Magus card, and so on to poem 22. “The Courage of Shutting Up”, the Universe or World card, 21. Poems 23 through 41 are not in Tarot order, but are based on Tarot cards. Poem 34 “Daddy” is Card 4, the Emperor. Poem 15, “Ariel”, is the Temperance or Art card (Kurtzman, 288).

BOTA stands for Builders of the Adytum. Paul Foster Case created this deck a few years after the Rider-Waite publication. Case felt that some of Arthur Waite’s symbols didn’t convey the actual meanings in the cards and lacked full esoteric wisdom. Plath’s title poem, Ariel, was based on the BOTA Temperance card. This is incredibly significant to her spiritual journey. The Temperance card is the symbol of balance, as without darkness, there is no light. It is also the card for the astrological sign of Sagittarius. Kurtzman explains that while Plath was writing Ariel, she was learning how to ride horses, and in fact, named her horse, Ariel.  The BOTA Temperance card has the same angel as the Rider-Waite card; however, on the left side of the angel is a lion (Leo was Ted Hugh’s astrological sign) and on the right side is an eagle (Scorpio was Plath’s astrological sign). The angel is pouring water over the lion and holding a torch over the eagle. The Sagittarius—half human, half horse—aims their flaming arrow at the red heart of Scorpio (Kurtzman). This symbolizes the death of her older self and her persona. With this death, she can now be reborn again. Rachel Pollack states in her book, Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom, that Leo (as fire) symbolizes The Magician and the eagle (in its highest form of Scorpio), stands for The High Priestess (Pollack, 107). Plath related to this card on many levels. Hughes and Plath shared a tumultuous relationship. Both parties felt an otherworldly connection to each other within the early stages of their marriage. Labeling herself the as High Priestess and Hughes as The Magician allowed them to live out the ultimate fantasy. In the BOTA Temperance card, the highest process of duality is achieved. The lion becomes one with the Eagle. Knowing that this poem was finished after Hughes’ affair, and their eventual separation, makes it even more heartbreaking.

While Ariel is a poem about rebirth, the poem “Edge” is based on her suicide. Here Plath uses the High Priestess card, the card of forbidden knowledge. The High Priestess encourages the querent to use intuition to move past the physical plane and enter the spiritual realm. This is done by studying and discovering the secret knowledge of the universe. The High Priestess wears the crown of Isis and has the Torah hidden beneath her cloak. There is a crescent moon by her feet, symbolizing the divine feminine.

I would have never known about Sylvia Plath’s involvement in the mystical arts, had I not looked further into analyzing her poems using a different approach. My curiosity began after I was asked to teach a course on mythology in poetry. While looking deeper into her poems, I noticed elements of magic breaking through what I had originally thought was a wounded and scorned goddess. Sylvia Plath’s exploration of the occult eventually provided her with something to look forward to once she chose to walk-out and exit the earthly plane.

References:

Sylvia Plath Letters Home. NY. Harper. 1975.

Gordon-Bramer, Julia. The Occult Sylvia Plath: The Hidden Spiritual Life of the Visionary Poet.

2024.

Plath’s “Ariel” and Tarot By Mary Kurtzman The Centennial Review Summer 1988 Vol 32 No 3

pp286-295.

Pollack, Rachel. Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness. Weiser

Books. 2019.

Links to works discussed and more:

Edge: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49009/edge-56d22ab50bbc1

Morning Song: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49008/morning-song-56d22ab4a0cee

The Couriers: https://allpoetry.com/The-Couriers

The Courage of Shutting Up: https://allpoetry.com/The-Courage-Of-Shutting-Up

Daddy: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48999/daddy-56d22aafa45b2

Ariel: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49001/ariel

The Bell Jar: https://www.amazon.com/Bell-Jar-Modern-Classics/dp/0060837020

The Hanged Man: https://allpoetry.com/The-Hanging-Man

Other sources to check out:

The Occult Sylvia Plath by Julia Gordon-Bramer

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Occult-Sylvia-Plath/Julia-Gordon-

Bramer/9781644118627

Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness (A New Edition of the

Tarot Classic) by Rachel Pollack.

https://redwheelweiser.com/book/seventy-eight-degrees-of-wisdom-9781578636655/